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Visual artists have long been in the forefront of social criticism in America. Since the 1960s, various visual strategies have helped emergent progressive political movements articulate and represent complex social issues. Which artists and particular art works/projects have become key anchors for discourses on racism, sexism, economic and social inequality, immigrant rights and climate change? We will learn about a spectrum of political art designed to raise social awareness, spark social change and rouse protest. The Art Workers Coalition¿s agit-prop opposing the Vietnam War and ACT-UP¿s emblematic signs and symbols during the AIDS/HIV crisis of the 1980s galvanized a generation into action. Works such as Judy Chicago¿s The Dinner Party (1979), Fred Wilson¿s Mining the Museum (1992), and Glenn Ligon¿s paintings appropriating fragments from African-American literature all raised awareness by excavating historical evidence of the long legacy resisting marginalization. For three decades feminist artists Barbara Kruger and the Guerilla Girls have combined institutional critique and direct address into a provocative form of criticality. Recent art for social justice is reaching ever broadening publics by redrawing the role of artist and audience exemplified by the democratization of poster making and internet campaigns of Occupy and the Movement for Black Lives. We will also consider the collective aesthetic activisms in the Post-Occupy era including Global Ultra Luxury Faction, Climate Justice art projects, and the visual culture of Trump era mass protests. Why are each of these examples successful as influential and enduring markers of social criticism? What have these socially responsive practices contributed to our understanding of American history?

(Graduate Students register for
PHIL 279A or
FEMGEN 203) This course is an opportunity to explore the difference feminist and queer perspectives make in creative arts, humanities, and social science research.nPrerequisites: Feminist Studies 101 or equivalent with consent of instructor.nNOTE: This course must be taken for a letter grade and a minimum of 3 units to be eligible for WAYS credit. The 2 unit option is for graduate students only.

This class is structured around three motifs: love suicide (as a romantic ideal), female desire, and same-sex sexuality. Over the course of the quarter we will look at how these motifs are treated in the art and entertainment from three different moments of Japanese history: the Edo period (1615-1868), the modern period (1920-65), and the contemporary period (1965-present). We will start by focusing on the most traditional representations of these topics. Subsequently, we will consider how later artists and entertainers revisited the conventional treatments of these motifs, informing them with new meanings and social significance. We will devote particular attention to how this material comments upon issues of gender, sexuality, and human relationships in the context of Japan. Informing our perspective will be feminist and queer theories of reading and interpretation.

Introduction to the comparative literary study of important gay, lesbian, queer, bisexual, and transgender writers and their changing social, political, and cultural contexts from the 1880s to today: Oscar Wilde, Rachilde, Radclyffe Hall, Djuna Barnes, James Baldwin, Jean Genet, Audre Lorde, Cherrie Moraga, Jeanette Winterson, Alison Bechdel and others, discussed in the context of 20th-century feminist and queer literary and social theories of gender and sexuality. Note: To be eligible for WAYS credit, you must take the course 110 or 110X for a Letter Grade.

FEMGEN 113X:Feminist Poetry in the U.S., 1973-2017 (COMPLIT 113)

Traces the development of feminist poetry in the United States from second wave feminists like Adrienne Rich, Audre Lorde, and Alicia Ostriker to contemporary poetry of Anne Boyer, Steph Burt, and Eileen Myles, among others. We will think broadly about the relationship between politics and poetry, and focus specifically on the influences of second- and third- wave feminism on poetry produced by women in the U.S. from the 1970s until today.Note: To be eligible for WAYS credit, you must take the course for a Letter Grade.

FEMGEN 115:Queer Reading and Queer Writing in Early Modern England

Considers the possibility of identifying queer reading and writing practices in early modern England as well the theoretical and historical obstacles such a project necessarily encounters. Focus on the role which Renaissance discourses of desire continue to play in our negotiations of homo/erotic subjectivity, identity politics, and sexual and gender difference. Study of Renaissance queerness in relation to the classical tradition on the one hand and the contemporary discourses of religion, law, and politics on the other. Readings include plays, poems, and prose narratives as well as letters, pamphlets, and ephemeral literature. Both major and minor authors will be represented.

This interdisciplinary fine arts course is designed to examine the nature of artistic imagination, sources of creativity and the way this work helps shape social change. We will consider the relationship among muses, mentors and models for queer artists engaged in such fields as visual art, music, theatre, film, creative writing and dance. Exploring various cultures, lands and times, we will study the relationship between memory and vision in serious art. We will ask questions about the role of the artist in the academy and the broader social responsibility of the artist. We will locate some of the similarities and differences among artists, engage with different disciplines, and discover what we can learn from one another. This seminar requires the strong voices of all participants. To encourage students to take their ideas and questions beyond the classroom, we will be attending art events (performances, exhibits, readings) individually and in groups.nnThe learning goals include a serious exploration of individual students¿ creativity, a more nuanced appreciation of diverse arts and a stronger understanding of the multifaceted nature of gender, race and class. Students will develop their abilities to write well-argued papers. They will stretch their imaginations in the written and oral assignments. And they will grow more confident as public speakers and seminar participants.

Last offered: Winter 2017
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-ED, Writing 2

FEMGEN 118:Transgender Cultural Studies

In the United States, we seem to be in a ¿transgender moment,¿ or we¿ve reached what Time magazine has called the ¿transgender tipping point.¿ In this course, we will explore what this cultural moment means for the representation of transgender, nonbinary, and gender non-conforming people. We will look historically and globally at differences in representation in order to better understand our current cultural moment. We will explore multiple genres, formats, and authorial points of view to critically think through how and by whom trans stories are told. How do interlocking systems of oppression continue to dictate and drive trans representation and narrative; how do trans authors and artists push back against these systems to (re)construct their own narrative and image? Through a critical engagement with film, memoir, graphic narrative, poetry, and fiction created by and/or about trans* people, this course will engage students with an instersectional approach to trans identity and representation in concert with racial identity, sexuality, disability, socio-economic status, age, gender, and citizenship.

Last offered: Winter 2017
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-ED

FEMGEN 126D:Victorian Sex

How can we make sense of a culture of extraordinary sexual repression that nevertheless seemed fully preoccupied with sex? Examination of the depictions of sex in Victorian literary and cultural texts. Authors include: Collins, Braddon, the Brownings, Swinburne, Stoker and Wilde.